Dr. Franz Boas (f) gives the following account of the funeral customs practiced by the Snanaimuq, a Salish tribe:
The face of the deceased is painted with red and black paint. * * * A chief’s body is put in a carved box and the front posts supporting his coffin are carved. His mask is placed between these posts. The graves of great warriors are marked by a statue representing a warrior with a war club. * * * After the death of husband or wife, the survivor must paint his legs and his blanket red. * * * At the end of the mourning period the red blanket is given to an old man, who deposits it in the woods.
Didron (a) speaks of emblems on tombstones:
Even today, at Constantinople, in the cemetery of the Armenians, every tombstone is marked with the insignia of the profession followed by the defunct which the stone covers. For an Armenian tailor there is a pair of shears, thread, and needles; for a mason, hammer and trowel; for a shoemaker, a last, leather, and a leather cutter; for a grocer, a pair of scales; for a banker, pieces of money. It is the same with others. Among us [Frenchmen], in the middle ages, a compass, a rule, and square are engraved on the tomb of Hugues Libergier. In the cemetery of L’Est, at Paris, a palette indicates the grave of a painter, a chisel and hammer mark that of a sculptor. Animals are represented as talking and acting, masks grimace and smile, to announce in the same inclosure the tombs of La Fontaine and of Molière. Among the Romans it was the same: a fisher had a boat on his tomb; a shepard, a sheep; a digger, a pickaxe; a navigator, an anchor or a trident; a vine-dresser, a cask; an architect, a capital or the instruments of his art.
Hewitt (g) says of the Dieri, a tribe of Central Australia:
A messenger who is sent to convey the intelligence of a death is smeared all over with white clay. On his approach to the camp the women all commence screaming and crying most passionately. After a time the particulars of the death are made known to the camp. The near relations and friends then only weep. Old men even cry bitterly, and their friends comfort them as if they were children. On the following day the near relations dress in mourning by smearing themselves over with white clay. Widows and widowers are prohibited by custom from uttering a word until the clay has worn off, however long it may remain on them. They do not, however, rub it off, as doing so would be considered a bad omen. It must absolutely wear off of itself. During this period they communicate by means of gesture language.
Dr. Ferdinand von Hochstetter (a) says:
The carved Maori figures which are met with on the road are the memorials of chiefs who, while journeying to the restorative baths of Rotorua, succumbed to their ills on the road. Some of the figures are decked out with pieces of clothing or kerchiefs; and the most remarkable feature in them is the close imitation of the tattooing of the deceased, by which the Maoris are able to recognize for whom the monument has been erected. Certain lines are peculiar to the tribe, others to the family, and again others to the individual. A close imitation of the tattooing of the face, therefore, is to the Maori the same as to us a photographic likeness; it does not require any description of name.
Fig. 734.—New Zealand grave effigy.